CRUEL REMINDER

R.I.P.


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I don't like watching people die and during nearly 28-years pumping blood through my body I've only witnessed two people's hearts cease before my eyes. I feel I have been sheltered from death in my life and imagine that the law of Sod (or simply averages) will one day compensate by bringing an intense period of loss. This last week I've been wondering whether I am entering into such a period.

Whilst attempting to go for a "big toilet" in the sports complex's only western toilet I was alerted to the sight of a gentleman being carried out of the jacuzzi face down and seemingly unconscious. It is at moments like these that ones body floods with something near to adrenaline, the mind instantly spills over with years of first-aid knowledge (that one hopes never to use) and things seem rather linear. But however these years of first-aid knowledge are yet to be translated into Farsi and my arrival on the scene was a little superfluous in the presence of other lifeguards, whom, not only are considerably more experienced than I but were also able to understand the explanation of bystanders. With a mixture of Farsi and sign language I was reassured that there was a pulse and also breathing and I was asked to help by substituting the lifeguards, yet the people in the pool who were only interested in watching us.

As the situation descended from bad to worse, CPR begun. In between my having one eye on the pool and one eye on the fading gentleman, I attempted to decipher who was with him. A man who later seemed to have accompanied the gentleman was calmly pacing back and forth which led me to believe he was a casual acquaintance - if that. He seemed not at all concerned that we had been conducting CPR for roughly 5-minutes at this point.

By my understanding 10-minutes of CPR is denial, yet we continued, and at roughly this point the acquaintance excepted the fact that we were not able to revive the gentleman - maybe it was the change in skin colour. My eyes fizzed and a swelling developed in my neck as the acquaintance - in tears - groaned loudly. A member of staff went to comfort this man, whom I then learned was in fact his father. Fathers shouldn't see their children die - we know that.

I resented the fact that the incident was in fact making me late for my lifeguard classes and this was a cruel reminder of the seriousness of the qualification. But I was cleanly aware of this and especially more so as a friends son drowned in a private pool only days before. He was 5-years old. He was left alone. He couldn't swim. They knew that. Mothers shouldn't see their children die - we know that.